THE PROBLEM OF TEMPORALITY IN THE WORK OF GEORG SIMMEL

While Georg Simmel's work is predominantly recognized as contributing to the formal analysis of social interaction and temporally is an issue not conceived of as a feature of his work, formal analysis is not incompatible with a temporal approach to the study of social life. This article discusses issues of temporality as they appeared in the work of Georg Simmel by first presenting some general comments about his work and its status within the discipline, as well as some problems present in his writings that contribute to confusion regarding his views on temporality as well as formal sociology itself. Next, his views on temporality as they relate to his dualistic perspective are discussed. This is followed by a discussion of his evolutionary epistemology, which is also relevant to the issue of temporality in his work. In conclusion, the ways in which Simmel's view of temporality could enhance current sociological inquiry are discussed.     

The political economy of urban homicide: assessing the relative impact of gender inequality on sex-specific victimization

This research examines the ways in which the changing political economy of urban areas has contributed differently to the homicide victimization rates of females and males across US cities. Recent research, while relatively limited, has presented disparate results regarding the effect of gender inequality on urban sex-specific victimization. Our work further explores this relationship by taking into account relative gender disparities in income, education, labor market opportunities, and politics in an examination of sex-specific homicide victimization in 1990. Key to this current investigation is the evaluation of feminist and lifestyle arguments that suggest that structural gender inequality has a unique effect on female victimization. Overall, our findings reveal gender inequality to be a significant predictor of both male and female urban homicide. While these findings suggest mixed support for theoretical arguments regarding gender inequality, further analyses reveal significant differences in specific types of gender inequality on victimization patterns across genders. These additional results highlight the need for greater attention toward both methodological and theoretical issues when examining the interconnections between gender, political economy, and violence in research.     

It Takes a Village to Deliver and Test Child and Family-Focused Services

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this article is to highlight the benefits of collaboration in child focused mental health services research. METHOD: Three unique research projects are described. These projects address the mental health needs of vulnerable, urban, minority children and their families. In each one, service delivery was codesigned, interventions were co-delivered and a team of stakeholders collaboratively tested the impact of each one. RESULTS: The results indicate that the three interventions designed, delivered, and tested are associated with reductions in youth mental health symptoms. CONCLUSION: These interventions are feasible alternatives to traditional individualized outpatient treatment.     

The Eudaimonic and Hedonic Components of Happiness: Qualitative and Quantitative Findings

This paper illustrates a new project developed by a cross-country team of researchers, with the aim of studying the hedonic and eudaimonic components of happiness through a mixed method approach combining both qualitative and quantitative analyses. Data were collected from 666 participants in Australia, Croatia, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and South Africa. A major aim of the study was to examine definitions and experiences of happiness using open-ended questions. Among the components of well-being traditionally associated with the eudaimonic approach, meaning in particular was explored in terms of constituents, relevance, and subjective experience. The Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) was also administered to quantitatively assess the hedonic dimension of happiness. Results showed that happiness was primarily defined as a condition of psychological balance and harmony. Among the different life domains, family and social relations were prominently associated with happiness and meaningfulness. The quantitative analyses highlighted the relationship between happiness, meaningfulness, and satisfaction with life, as well as the different and complementary contributions of each component to well-being. At the theoretical and methodological levels, findings suggest the importance of jointly investigating happiness and its relationship with other dimensions of well-being, in order to detect differences and synergies among them.     

Cessation of breastfeeding in association with oxytocin administration and type of birth. A prospective cohort study

Background

Some studies have suggested an association between synthetic oxytocin administration and type of birth with the initiation and consolidation of breastfeeding.

A new long-term lifetime distribution induced by a latent complementary risk framework

In this paper, we proposed a new three-parameter long-term lifetime distribution induced by a latent complementary risk framework with decreasing, increasing and unimodal hazard function, the long-term complementary exponential geometric distribution. The new distribution arises from latent competing risk scenarios, where the lifetime associated scenario, with a particular risk, is not observable, rather we observe only the maximum lifetime value among all risks, and the presence of long-term survival. The properties of the proposed distribution are discussed, including its probability density function and explicit algebraic formulas for its reliability, hazard and quantile functions and order statistics. The parameter estimation is based on the usual maximum-likelihood approach. A simulation study assesses the performance of the estimation procedure. We compare the new distribution with its particular cases, as well as with the long-term Weibull distribution on three real data sets, observing its potential and competitiveness in comparison with some usual long-term lifetime distributions.     

Matching Inefficiencies,Regional Disparities,and Unemployment

Abstract. In this paper we apply a stochastic frontier approach to examine how matching inefficiencies and regional disparities in structural factors contribute to regional and aggregate unemployment. Our results suggest that there would be a substantial decline in aggregate unemployment if (i) all local labour offices operated with full efficiency or (ii) they shared the same structure of job seekers and vacant jobs as the most favourable office. In the former case an increase in hirings would lower the average unemployment rate by 2.4 percentage points. In the latter case the decrease would be 1.4 percentage points. Further, we find that fixed effects are positively correlated with both a more favourable structure and higher efficiency. This suggests that the fixed effects may capture some part of time‐invariant features in the structure and inefficiency. Thus, the role of structural factors and inefficiency in regional unemployment disparities may be higher than estimated.     

Functional-coefficient cointegration models in the presence of deterministic trends

In this article, we extend the functional-coefficient cointegration model (FCCM) to the cases in which nonstationary regressors contain both stochastic and deterministic trends. A nondegenerate distributional theory on the local linear (LL) regression smoother of the FCCM is explored. It is demonstrated that even when integrated regressors are endogenous, the limiting distribution is the same as if they were exogenous. Finite-sample performance of the LL estimator is investigated via Monte Carlo simulations in comparison with an alternative estimation method. As an application of the FCCM, electricity demand analysis in Illinois is considered.